A multi-million-dollar expansion is underway at Timberlink’s Tarpeena mill in South Australia, upgrading the sawmill and building an Australian-first manufacturing plant.
Key points:
- Timberlink is building a $63 million cross laminated timber and glue laminated timber plant in Tarpeena
- The co-located manufacturing plant is the first of its kind in Australia
- Timberlink has also completed its sawmill expansion, but local builders say the backlog in timber demand means it won’t make a difference for months
The $63 million manufacturing plant will produce cross laminated timber (CLT) and glue laminated timber (GLT).
CLT is manufactured into panels and can act as a replacement for concrete, and GLT is produced as beams that can replace steel.
Timberlink chief executive Ian Tyson said the products were “tremendously environmentally friendly”.
Timberlink said it expected to be fully operational by September next year with the products being used in high-rise buildings and sport facilities across Australia.
“It’s a whole new market and a whole new opportunity for timber in a transformed, value-added form to be utilised in construction,” Mr Tyson said.
“The demand is there, the opportunity is there.”
Mr Tyson said the manufacturing process for CLT and GLT used shorter lengths of wood so the timber would not be coming out of the current supply.
“Builders want longer length material,” he said.
More timber for housing
The build coincides with the completion of Timberlink’s sawmill expansion.
Mr Tyson said the increased production from that expansion “will start to flow through into the market in the next several months”.
“Then the material that is the shorter links will be finger jointed and feed into our new CLT plant.”
Mr Tyson said the demand for timber products from the Australian housing market had remained strong.
“Before we started building this plant we invested more than $100 million in our Tarpeena site to expand production,” he said.
“So the material that goes into the CLT plant is not coming out of the marketplace.
“It’s coming from the expanded production that we’ve invested in and it’s also coming from less desired material that the Australian builders are less likely to take.”
A ‘chaotic’ time
But Mount Gambier builder and developer Shane Dycer said additional timber entering the supply chain will not make much of a difference locally.
“It’s a bit of a fallacy that everyone thinks because we’re in the south-east, with the timber industry down here, that we have some sort of access to timber more than anyone else,” he said.
“All the stuff that they supply is tied up and goes to merchants in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, overseas, and then get sold back to the regions.
Mr Dycer said there will “eventually be a flow-on effect”.
“We’re that far behind on orders now that it’ll take a while to filter through,” he said.
“If it’s two months until they [Timberlink] start churning out [additional timber] I wouldn’t think the ripple effect will hit here for another six or eight months.”
He said the industry had been “chaotic”.
“The building industry hadn’t slowed at all over the past 12 months,” he said.
“Instead of a job taking six months for a standard house build it’s probably taking nine or 10.
“If it’s a commercial build, if it’s a normal 12-month project, it’s more like a 15 or 16-month project at the moment.
Mr Dycer said the industry was really feeling the pressure from the timber shortage.
“Definitely our timber wholesalers that that we buy from, they are struggling with supply and demand,” Mr Dycer said.
“If you order 100 tonne you might get given 10, so that’s a bit of a worrying concern.
“I think the workload on everyone is starting to probably wear it a bit thin as well. Frames and trusses manufacturers are probably out to about eight months in front.
